The Walt Disney Company shareholders overwhelmingly reject anti-DEI proposal
Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Shareholders in The Walt Disney Company (TWDC) have rejected an investor proposal to withdraw participation in the Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) Corporate Equity Index, which rates workplaces on LGBTQ equality.
The HRC’s Corporate Equality Index is the national benchmarking tool in the US on corporate policies, practices and benefits pertinent to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer employees.
According to a preliminary tally announced Thursday, only 1% of TWD shareholders voted to support the proposal for Disney to stop taking part in the HRC’s corporate equality index.
The far-right activist group National Center for Public Policy Research reportedly urged TWDC to stop using the index as a benchmark and called for the Mouse House to “move back to neutral.”
“When corporations take extreme positions, they destroy shareholder value by alienating large portions of their customers and investors,” the proposal stated.
Disney has been among the highest-profile US employers to ride back on some of its diversity and inclusion practices against the backdrop of a right-wing Trump administration looking to crack down on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices.
Eric Bloem, VP of corporate citizenship at the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation welcomed the near unanimous rejection of the call for TWDC to withdraw from the Corporate Equity Index.
Bloem said: “This vote gives us a clear statement of values from Disney’s shareholders. They know what we know – that despite all the noise, commitments to inclusion pay figurative dividends and help their literal bottom line. And they’re not alone.
“Shareholders at companies as diverse as Costco, Apple, John Deere and others in the past months, have resoundingly rejected efforts to roll-back DEI. We know that 93% of LGBTQ+ workers believe that scoring 100 on the Corporate Equality Index communicates support of the LGBTQ+ community – those are current and future employees and customers. Disney shareholders recognise this.”
